Chapter 566, Contaminated Zone 4 (Part 7)

The bamboo forest has been transformed into a battlefield.

The broken bamboo poles swayed violently in the gale, turning the moonlight into an eerie bluish-gray.

Jiang Mu's expression turned unusually serious as he slowly raised his hand and drew the two swords from the sides of his backpack.

The moment it was drawn from its sheath.

The blade gleamed coldly as it rubbed against the air.

Jiang Mu lightly touched the bamboo branches with his toes, and using the swaying bamboo shadows, he leaped into the air and quickly entered the battlefield.

The mutant of the same level is covered in a corrosive black slime, making it very vulnerable in close combat.

Dark matter is the thing that spirits hate the most.

Jiang Mu couldn't bear to see his child contaminated by this stuff.

Moreover, this was the first S-class mutant he had encountered since he began his mission.

As for its combat capabilities, you'll only know by trying it yourself.

Xie Tu pulled Yun Zhao back to the edge of the bamboo forest, clearly not intending to participate in the battle.

Jiang Mu usually appears lazy; he would rather lie down than stand, and he would rather slack off than work hard.

But once the blade is drawn, the person seems to have a completely different soul.

— Sharp, precise, and deadly.

Sensing his approach, the mutant suddenly turned around, and jet-black slime gushed from its body, coiling around him like a living thing.

Jiang Mu clicked his tongue, his body suddenly turned in mid-air, his toes lightly touching the bamboo pole, using the force to spin around, and his two swords slashed out in a crisscross pattern.

The mutant swiftly dodged, emerging from the shadows.

It has a humanoid outline, its body is covered in black slime, and it holds a knife in its right claw. Its tall body looks extremely dangerous under the cover of black mist.

The liquid fell onto the bamboo leaves, corroding them and creating honeycomb-like holes.

Jiang Mu made a move.

The trajectory of the charge resembled a zigzag line, with the blade drawing a perfect semicircle in the air.

but……

Before the twin blades could strike, suddenly, countless bluish-green fluorescent lights flashed from all around, like fireflies on a summer night, yet carrying a chilling sense of order, spreading from the edge of the bamboo forest into its depths.

Countless strands of spiritual energy surged into the mutant's body in an instant.

The mutant's movements suddenly froze.

The black slime was still writhing, and the blade was still trembling, yet it seemed to be bound by countless transparent threads.

"Tsk." Jiang Mu stopped two or three meters away from the monster and slowly sheathed his sword. "You won't even let us try?"

It's rare to encounter a real-world opponent.

"Stop talking nonsense and get to the gatekeeper's clues as soon as possible."

Fu Yu recalled the water unicorn and walked out from the shadows of the bamboo forest, stopping two or three meters away from the monster.

This guy is very strong; he retains his fighting spirit from when he was alive.

Despite their efforts to deal with it for so long, the two of them have not caused it much damage.

Of course, there was an element of deliberately making things watery.

The Sentinels' advantage lies in their spiritual entities. With these entities responsible for interception, it's a good opportunity to test the upper limit of the S-class mutants' combat power.

Jiang Mu was speechless. "It's over as soon as I arrive?"

Xia Mingang shrugged. "Who told you to take so long to come out? Or should I let you deliver the final blow?"

Jiang Mu scoffed and turned to look at the two people standing at the edge of the bamboo forest.

A night breeze swept by, casting dappled shadows of bamboo on the two of them.

Xie Tu showed no reaction to the probing gaze. He frowned slightly and looked at Yun Zhao with a heavy expression.

She stood quietly to one side, her head bowed, her expression unreadable, but her body suddenly trembled.

The mental connection established between the two made him realize immediately that something was wrong.

Is she grieving?

"It wasn't me." Yun Zhao breathed a sigh of relief, feeling the blood in his body begin to warm up, before slowly saying, "It was it."

The moment the mental threads controlled the Sentinel mutant, they captured its intense emotions.

It's so sad...

Yun Zhao tried to capture its memory fragments and understand its distorted past, but the monster was just a monster, and apart from the intense sorrow that almost dragged her into the abyss, it was a complete mess.

"I can't help it," Yun Zhao said softly.

Upon hearing her words, all four people present turned to look at the controlled S-class mutant.

In the center of the collapsed bamboo forest, a tall monster covered in black slime roared.

Its only remaining human feature is its right arm, with its bulging muscles. However, its fingers are completely distorted, with the five fingers fused to the rusted iron of the hilt. The blade is twisted and deformed, seemingly telling the story of past killings.

The spiritual threads bound it firmly to its original position.

Black slime dripped continuously from the jagged limbs, causing the ground to hiss and sizzle as it touched the flesh, and puffs of white smoke to rise from it.

The little bluebird tilted its head, releasing even more spiritual energy.

Whenever the black mist surged and attempted to resist, the spiritual threads suddenly shone brightly, and countless fluorescent lights rushed forward. No matter how frantically it struggled, it could never break free from the cage woven by the light.

"The base once conducted a study that led to this conclusion."

Fu Heng turned her head away, not looking at the controlled shadowy figure. "In the past two hundred years, fewer than a hundred S-class Sentinels have been born in the world, and their lifespan is basically no more than 35 years."

Ordinary guides are simply unable to clear the dark matter from S-class areas.

The more frequent the battles, the more severe the erosion, and sooner or later, distortion will occur.

But for the sake of humanity's future, the S-class Sentinels had no choice but to step forward and stand at the forefront.

Fu Yu originally thought that her final fate would be the same as that of this mutant.

"If it were me, I would rather die than continue living in a mutant form."

Everyone present fell silent.

Nobody wants to delve into the past of a mutant.

In an era when survival was extremely difficult, life and death, love and hate, were all like clouds in the grand scheme of things, easily dispersed by a breath of fresh air.

Yun Zhao was feeling unwell.

A wave of grief, as intense as a tsunami, surged through the spiritual threads, an emotion so powerful it almost materialized.

It's already affecting her.

Why be sad?

Is it wrong to be a monster without any emotions?

Why run into the contaminated area, only to be reminded of that last bit of obsession by the gatekeeper?

Everything should have vanished long ago.

Influenced by this, Yun Zhao even pessimistically thought that if all of this was really related to Yun Jue, then she would not forgive him.

She will still love her father, but she will not choose to forgive the perpetrators of the disaster.

Seeing her reaction, Xie Tu's eyes darkened. He drew his long sword and slowly walked towards the struggling monster.

"it's over."

Xie Tu's eyes were calm as he raised the knife in his hand. "Everything will be over soon."

The blade traced a cold arc in the moonlight.

The mutant suddenly stopped struggling. It slowly raised its head, and the corners of its mouth, congealed with black mucus, twisted into a distorted, almost gentle arc.

It sounded like a sigh from ancient times.

The sorrow receded like the tide, and the fragmented memories, too numerous to capture or express, quickly vanished.

Fu Yu, Jiang Mu, and Xia Mingang remained silent throughout.

As fellow S-class Sentinels, I couldn't help but feel a sense of shared sorrow, like the plight of a rabbit mourning the death of a fox.

Fu Yu recalled that rainy night three years ago when her mental state first rioted, and the cold sentence on the medical team's diagnosis report: "The remaining period of stability is expected to be no more than five years."

She is lucky.

An S-rank guide has appeared.

Yun Zhao finally escaped the grief that was threatening to drown her.

She breathed softly, suddenly remembering the will-o'-the-wisps that only she could see in the contaminated zone number 28.

Yun Zhao wasn't quite sure, and asked softly, "Did you hear a sigh?"